Thlipsis
by yopparai
Summary: A year after the destruction of Planet Vegeta, Radditz remembered he had a brother. Yaoi.
1. 1

Disclaimer: I do not own DBZ.

* * *

Radditz told himself he should have long since been inured to disappointment.

The bratling was small. Too small. The skin too pale, the bones too brittle, and the flesh too soft. At an age when he should have been tearing the meat from the bones of his prey to chew for the nutrient-rich blood, he was suckling from a primitive bottle made of a piece of rubber and a stoneware jar, milk dribbling from the corners of his mouth.

But the hair was their father's. Radditz didn't even need to smell him or to see the tail lying limp on the stone floor to know who this naked bratling was.

What an awful thing to have come of the blood of Bardock.

Radditz was indistinctly relieved to have turned the visual on his scouter off. He could not have borne it if Vegeta had seen this.

A swing of his tail sent the bottle flying, to shatter against a wooden wall. There was a stink of milk.

To his credit, the bratling did not cry, but, to his shame, neither did he scream with rage. Instead, he lowered his empty hands and cocked his head back to look up at Radditz, the big, wide, _empty_ eyes almost...curious.

The cloth bandage was large and tightly wrapped, binding the bratling's hair into unaccustomed configurations. Radditz could smell the blood from where he stood, some old and some new, some still pumping red from split flesh. The wound had been recent, and probably still hurt—it looked as if something had tried to cleave the bratling's head in two from above and behind. Despite himself, Radditz was faintly impressed that the boy had survived such a thing.

_"Radditz."_

Radditz raised his head, lip curling. "What, Nappa."

_"Don't give me that. Vegeta wants a report."_

Hells above and below. "I found him."

_"Yeah?"_ A pause. _"So?"_

"Been wounded." Radditz clenched his teeth. "Explains why everything isn't dead."

He did not want to go on, but Nappa said nothing and waited.

"He's alive," Radditz finally said, grudgingly, through a tight jaw, "but...something's not right. The wound was on his head. I think it might have permanently damaged him."

_"Give us a visual."_

Not if someone offered him promotion to a higher class would Radditz let his brother be seen like this.

"Give me a moment."

The bratling grunted as Radditz lifted him by a handful of his hair. A high tolerance for pain, then—that was _something_, at least.

Outside of the small, rank dwelling, where the open air of a warm morning on this miserable, backwater planet was wetter but at least breathable, Radditz dropped the bratling into the grass. The bratling made a high-pitched, breathless sort of noise, as if he were _enjoying_ himself, and then Radditz reached down and tore the bandage from the back of his brother's head.

The shriek that followed was rather gratifying in its lack of pain or fear, and even more so in it surplus of temper and shock.

_"He's got lungs."_

The bratling sat in the grass, clutching tiny handfuls of his own hair as his face turned red. The wound was unspeakable, and would probably have required even a grown man to spend a few hours in a tank. That his brother had not only survived it but seemed well on his way to forgetting about it altogether made Radditz's hopes tick sharply up.

"Here he is," he said, and switched on his scouter's visual transmission.

For several seconds, long, _long_ seconds, neither Nappa nor the prince said anything.

_Fuck._ Radditz's grip on his scouter tightened.

The bratling seemed to feel his tension, looking up at him silently. Too silently. That calm, open face—the big, empty eyes beneath the fringe of blood-matted hair. What kind of bratling didn't scream or howl with every breath? Didn't demand attention and food with equal ferocity and volume? Didn't come leaping at the first adult to near, teeth bared and tail lashing? Like a proper, _healthy_ baby?

The bratling's tail slowly curled and uncurled behind him.

_He's defective._ Radditz did not think of his father, or how much of his father's face there was in the bratling's. Instead, he calmly and dispassionately waited for the prince to tell him to kill his brother.

The bratling sneezed.

A small, snotless sneeze, the kind only babies produced. Every hair on the bratling's tail stood out, and then Radditz's brother bared his teeth, his eyes abruptly savage, as if to snarl _I didn't like that!_

Every single muscle in Radditz's body stilled as he stared.

A Saiyajin baby. A true Saiyajin child, nearly three years after Planet Vegeta had been destroyed. A Saiyajin baby, as damaged as he was, as low-class as he was, with all the genetic memory and heritage of an extinct people. The youngest Saiyajin alive.

The ghost of dead race, in this small, pathetic thing that looked fearlessly—though blankly—up at Radditz, a small hand touching the tip of Radditz's boot.

"Kakarrot," said Radditz, naming his brother without meaning to, and the sudden, weak surge of protective instinct that spread his fingers as he involuntarily began to reach out to his brother was as demeaning as it was displeasing.

He drew back his fist, his lips pulled back in a snarl, humiliated by his own body's reaction, and Radditz lifted that same hand to strike the killing blow.

Then, for the first time since he had stepped out of the pod, Radditz heard the prince's voice.

_"Bring him."_


	2. 2

Disclaimer: I do not own DBZ.

* * *

Kakarrot hated being a child.

"But Radditz," he protested, trying not to whine, "it's so boring! Nothing ever happens! Why can't I—"

"You will _be quiet_," said Radditz, his voice even despite the irritated twitching of his tail, "or I will break your jaw."

That was a lie. Radditz would not hesitate to hurt him to get a point across, Kakarrot knew, but he had never broken anything before and Kakarrot was confident Radditz never would.

Radditz had clearly dressed for a formal presenting, his armor burnished like new, his scouter gleaming, and his Saiyajin cape stiffened to a shine. His hair was bristling with the attentions of his fingers. His tail, however, was still loose rather than wound about his waist, and Kakarrot lightly batted at it with his own as he trailed Radditz down the maintenance corridor.

Kakarrot himself was dressed as he always was—in the black bodysuit that would normally have gone under armor. It was clothing that Radditz had long ago outgrown, as were the gloves and the boots.

"But I am nearly _fifteen_," he pressed. "And I never get to go with you! I have never even _seen_ Lord Frieza! I swear I'll behave—"

Radditz moved, and then Kakarrot was slammed up against the reinforced corridor wall, his brother's snarl hot in his face. The grip on his neck verged on painful. His feet no longer reached the floor.

"The prince commands," growled Radditz, his bared teeth over Kakarrot's mouth, "and we obey. He _commands_ you to stay here. You will _obey_."

Radditz's fingers in his throat made the world distend and take on a sheen as Kakarrot's brain was deprived of oxygen and blood. He lowered his eyes, turning his head to one side, his growl low and subdued, his posture submissive. He laid his hands flat against the wall, relaxing as much as he could.

His tail, now at a lower angle than his brother's, stroked hesitantly, imploringly at Radditz's.

Radditz was very, very still.

Kakarrot waited.

The fingers tightened. Radditz seemed to almost imperceptibly shift closer, or perhaps that was just what it seemed like. Kakarrot clearly heard his brother breathe in, a long, almost interminable intake of air.

And then Radditz moved away, his hand leaving Kakarrot's neck.

"Stay in our quarters," said Radditz, much more calmly. "Don't release the hatches for anyone but me. And keep—"

"—out of the prince's way," finished Kakarrot, unable to help how sulky he sounded, even to himself. "I know, brother."

Radditz raised his eyebrows at Kakarrot. Kakarrot responded by baring his teeth, a thing which even he himself knew was a poor imitation of his brother's snarl.

The corner of Radditz's mouth moved, the closest he ever came to a smile. And then Radditz was walking away, down the corridor the way he had been going, toward the docking bay where he would board a transport.

Kakarrot watched him go.

Nappa was always complaining that Radditz went too easy on Kakarrot. He heard them talking, sometimes, long after he was supposed to have retired and Nappa and Radditz stayed up drinking. _Half-grown and still a brat,_ Nappa would say, spitting in disgust. _No manners, at this rate how is he ever going to be fit to—_

_You're rushing ahead,_ Radditz would say, and by the clenched quality of his voice, Kakarrot could always tell that his brother was trying to restrain himself. Nappa was a higher class—an idiot, but still a higher class. _He is still a brat, so it's only right he should act like a brat._

Nappa's voice would lower. _What's this? Is Radditz, son of Bardock, telling me his brat brother needs coddling? Is _that_ what you've been doing. I'll wager you've been doing some _coddling_—_

Then things almost always degenerated into a fight. Once, Nappa had blasted Radditz right through three inner compartment walls and nearly through the outer one, which had caused the prince himself to come and punish them both until Kakarrot had heard Nappa begging forgiveness from nearly half a station away. Since then, the fights had been contained to one trashed compartment at a time.

_Radditz_ hadn't begged. He _never_ begged.

Kakarrot shook himself out of his daze, his tail lashing. Overhead, there was a whir of machinery and adjusting atmo as the transport pod holding Radditz disengaged from the station. His brother would not return until late into the next day cycle.

He kicked off from the wall he'd been leaning against, somersaulted down the slightly downward curving corridor, and made for his room.

The quarters given to the sons of Bardock were the innermost on that particular level of the station. The only ways to get to them were through Nappa's own quarters or through the maintenance tunnels, which all had hatches that sealed from within. Not only that, but the only way to even get onto the level was through the first and second strata of the station, the second of which was the level where the prince had his own quarters.

Kakarrot had only ever seen them the once, when they had first boarded the station. He had been thirteen, had turned only the week before, and he had followed his brother onto the station eagerly enough, pestering both Radditz and Nappa with questions until Nappa tossed him into a wall. He vaguely recalled the docking bay, a communications hub, the armory, a pod repair subsection, some other things—

And a sharp, imperious shape, a glimpse of which was all he caught before Radditz had dragged him away by the hair.

Kakarrot glanced upward, at the ceiling, and thought that he was probably almost directly under the prince's personal chamber.

He had some idea of what Prince Vegeta looked like. Younger than Nappa, perhaps of an age with Radditz. Shorter than either of them, though probably still taller than Kakarrot. Vegeta looked like his father, Radditz had told him once, except that didn't mean anything to Kakarrot. Kakarrot was reasonably sure he had seen Prince Vegeta face to face at least once or twice when he'd been younger, but that had been several years ago, and most of his infant memories were indistinct.

_Our bulwark against the universe,_ Nappa had said before, when Kakarrot was still a bratling, and once Radditz explained what a _bulwark_ was, Kakarrot had been suitably impressed with Prince Vegeta's importance as the one thing that kept Lord Frieza's minions from either killing them all or, worse, taking them as slaves. This struck Kakarrot as a far better reason for him to respect and obey the prince than _He's the prince so just do it._

Prince Vegeta, in turn, seemed completely unaware that there even _was_ a fourth Saiyajin on the station. Kakarrot reasoned that a prince who was also a bulwark was probably a busy Saiyajin, and had no use for brats who had not even attained maturity. Kakarrot was always being told to _keep out of the prince's way_, but he didn't see why he should be the one being warned like that all the time when _he_ was the one who was confined to quarters, where the prince was as likely to show up as Lord Frieza was. All he knew about the prince was that he was even hotter-tempered than Radditz, of the purest Saiyajin blood and thus completely above even noticing the existence of something like Kakarrot, and, in Radditz's words, _your prince and your god and the whole of your history and race and if I _ever_ catch you trying to spy on him again, I'll rip your tail out myself—_

Anyway, Kakarrot was not in the habit of thinking long about things that he did not see or interact with every day. The prince was a fact of the universe, a natural force, as unquestionable and no more related to Kakarrot than a supernova or a black hole, simply to be accepted. It was not strange that he did not know what one of the three only other Saiyajins in the universe looked like, simply because that was the way it had always been, so far as memory held. And Kakarrot felt that having one more adult around—the _prince_ of all Saiyajins, at that—would probably just mean more grief for him. Nappa was bad enough—Kakarrot often reflected on how much more pleasant life would be if it were only Radditz and him.

And then perhaps Radditz would go back to the way he had been, before. Before Kakarrot had turned thirteen. Before Nappa had taken one long, strange look at him, inhaled deeply, and said, _That's it, then._ Before they had boarded the station, a small, newly-built facility that had stunk of aliens for nearly a whole planet cycle, and Kakarrot had discovered his life to be limited to the twenty-two walls that made up the innermost quarters. Before Radditz had thrown Kakarrot out of his room, out of the familial bed they had always shared, yelling at him, _Stop clinging to me, you fucking brat!_

Before Radditz had begun avoiding his touch.

The light in their quarters was set to low, the air still hot with the ablutions Radditz had made as he dressed. Kakarrot picked up the scent of Radditz's hair, the new armor, the sharp cleanser and the stinging polish. The door to Radditz's personal chamber was slightly ajar, and Kakarrot went to it.

When he'd still been a bratling, Kakarrot had preferred to sleep with his face in Radditz's hair. Nappa never let either of them forget it. _Like a goddamn water snake, all tangled up in it. Remember, Radditz, you nearly killed him outright every night for a fucking—_

Kakarrot still remembered it—at least a little. The warmth, the roughness of it, the overwhelming familiarity. The smell of kin and blood. Most of all the associated sense of safety—of being secure and protected from all the universe. He remembered wrapping himself in that sense as a baby, of rolling into his brother's hair until they were tangled into almost one being and Radditz howled with rage when he woke. He remembered the reassuring feel of it against his face as he went to sleep, curled up against Radditz's broad back, as recently as when he had been twelve.

No longer. Not since he had turned thirteen, and Nappa's inexplicably final _That's it, then._

Kakarrot missed it still, two years later, but the one time he had attempted to sleep at his brother's side again, Radditz had beaten him so badly he had spent an hour in the tank the next day. Kakarrot hadn't tried it again.

Even now, he hesitated at the doorway, despite being alone, flesh aching with the memory of bruises and welts.

Something sharp and painful gnawed at the pit of his stomach. He knew what it was, but he would not name it. He was at least Saiyajin enough for that, no matter what Nappa was always saying about defective brats with broken heads.

Saiyajins did not long for _anything_. And Kakarrot was Saiyajin.

He turned away from Radditz's room, and toward his own. Nappa had given him yet another genealogy chart to memorize, and had sworn he would skin Kakarrot alive if he did not know it by the time Nappa returned from his mission.

The station hummed around him, a sourceless noise of empty rooms and sealed hatches.


	3. 3

Disclaimer: I do not own DBZ.

* * *

The whir of the docking bay entering intake procedure woke Kakarrot from his nap. A glance at the ship's cycle display told him that it was nearly a whole cycle before Radditz had told him he would return.

_He finished early!_ Kakarrot swung his body upward, balancing on his hands, and then spun to his feet. Nappa was scheduled to be gone for another day cycle at least, and the prince was—wherever the prince was. A whole twenty-five ship cycles, just for them! Perhaps Radditz would even feel like sparring!

The training room was relatively clean—Kakarrot had restrained his energy blasts, aware that he would have to vaporize out any scorch marks he left, and the general quarters were as clean as they ever got. The genealogy chart was memorized, the fractured shoulder guard repaired—there was literally _nothing_ for Radditz to yell at him about. Now if _only_ the formal presenting had gone well, and Radditz were in a good mood—

He dashed through Nappa's quarters, barely glancing at the nav console mounted in the far wall. If Radditz were in a good mood, perhaps they could hack Nappa's security code and visit the steam room Nappa had had put in on the second level and declared off limits to _low level rats, and look at me like that again, Radditz, see what happens—_

The hatch that led into the corridor connected to the station's primary lift opened at the same second that Kakarrot reached it. He had just enough time to register that he had not been close enough for his body signature to have been what triggered the unlocking mechanism before he charged face-first into a white breastplate.

The resulting collision seared his vision white.

"Oh _ho_," a soft, high-pitched voice said. "What's this?"

Kakarrot reeled. He began to fall, and a large hand took his arm in a merciless grip, jerking him to a stop.

"_Four_ little Saiyajins now," said that same voice. "And not nearly as young as it was said."

Distantly, Kakarrot realized that the hand holding up him, a hand like cold, sharp pieces of metal, was attached to no one he knew.

That made his eyes open, despite the pain.

The creature in front of him was tall. And _blue_. A wave of green hair rippled to wide, winged shoulder guards and then tightened into a thick braid. Beneath thin, cruelly arcing brows, golden eyes were intently focused on Kakarrot.

"Now, little one," said the creature. Its eyes flicked from Kakarrot's face to his tail, hanging somewhat limply, and back. "From that furred _thing_, you are Saiyajin. Yet—" The grip on Kakarrot's arm tightened until it was painful, and then the creature gave Kakarrot a look that seemed almost a physical touch. "Yet no little monkey _I_ have ever seen looks as you do. Who are you?"

Kakarrot opened his mouth to answer. And then closed it.

The creature looked amused.

Kakarrot tried to imagine what Radditz might say in this situation. "Speak first, intruder! This is Saiyajin territory!"

He tried not to flinch at how high and young his voice sounded—even to his own ears.

The creature's brows went up, and now it did laugh. "How bold! A bold child—that is what you are, yes? A child? Certainly you don't _look_ like the crude apes who claim this..._territory_. And—"

The creature _pulled_. Kakarrot was yanked forward, and only prevented himself from sprawling onto the stranger by catching at the creature's shoulder guard with his free hand.

The creature put its face just beside Kakarrot's head and _sniffed_.

Kakarrot was disgusted. And alarmed. How dare this thing! Only Radditz had ever shown such familiarity with him, and Kakarrot had always taken it for granted that such behavior was meant for close kin. To have this—thing—imitate an intimate familial gesture was—

"You don't _smell_ as they do," the creature murmured, "like beasts and slaves. No..." Now the breath, at Kakarrot's ear. "_You_ smell—"

Kakarrot slammed his forehead into the creature's face.

It pulled back, but did not seem to be in pain—though a flicker of irritation moved through its eyes. Then, with a single, graceful movement, the creature lifted Kakarrot off his feet by that same grip on his arm, swung him around, and hurled him into the wall.

Kakarrot struck the curving corridor wall with such force that he distinctly—if remotely—heard the metal warp beneath his body. Something tore and Kakarrot realized it was the material of his sleeve, where the creature had caught its nails.

His entire body went instantly numb, and then his brain was engulfed in _pain_.

_"Naughty child,"_ the creature was saying, somewhere far, far away. _"I will teach you manners before I make a present of you to Lord Frieza."_

Footsteps, right next to his head. Kakarrot realized he was lying in a heap on the floor and could not remember how he'd gotten there. The creature was standing over him and Kakarrot knew he had to get up, had to defend himself—had to fight—but his spine felt broken and his body would not move. He tried to open his eyes and could not even do that.

_A proud Saiyajiin you are,_ a voice that sounded a lot like Nappa seemed to say.

_Radditz,_ thought Kakarrot. A pitiful, mewling little whisper in his mind, the whimper of a brat. _Radditz._

"Now, child," said the creature, and Kakarrot received an impression of something reaching for him. "Come with Zarbon, and we shall see what you—"

A hiss of compressed air, and the hatch opened again.

The creature—Zarbon?—pulled back.

Kakarrot felt as if he would suffocate, it hurt so much and the pain pressed so heavily down on his lungs. Everything felt distant and cold, and Kakarrot understood that he was beginning to pass out. No! If he lost consciousness—if he could not fight, then the creature, Zarbon, it would—its _fingers_, in his _skin_, Zarbon would—

"You've returned," said Zarbon's voice. It was—flatter, somehow. "Much sooner than expected."

_Radditz!_ Kakarrot tried to force his eyes to open, to will them—and got nowhere.

"What a disobedient little monkey you have been, to tell such lies to Lord Frieza. _A low-class nothing. Little more than a servant._"

Where was Radditz's snarl? Kakarrot knew his brother's temper, he would never stand to be spoken to like that, especially not by some alien.

"You Saiyajins have no taste. _I_ find him...rather pleasing to the eye, myself."

Something in Kakarrot's chest was hurting, a sharp, throbbing pain. Were his ribs broken?

"Perhaps I shall ask Lord Frieza for him. A little reward, for loyal service. Do you even understand loyalty, Saiyajin?"

And then—

_"Get off my station,"_ said—

Through the agony that was his chest, Kakarrot thought, _Who is that?_

Zarbon was laughing. A high-pitched, mocking laugh. "Hackles rising, eh? Well, as you will. I only came to inspect your little junkyard—and it seems I have already found the most interesting thing in it."

Something leaning over him—and Kakarrot was aware of the smell of the creature, a scented, oily thing that made him want to gag.

"Grow up quickly, little one," Zarbon murmured close to his ear. "I _long_ to see how you will look full-grown—and patience is not one of my virtues."

Then the creature was gone.

Kakarrot was shaking. He managed to open his eyes, but only barely. Not enough to see Zarbon leaving, the hatch opening and closing. Not enough to even see across the corridor, to the undamaged wall where the solar-shielded portholes looked out into the void of space.

But enough to see the boots of someone standing over him.

_Radditz,_ Kakarrot cried out—or would have, if his tongue had worked. _Radditz, Radditz, where are you?_

This was not Radditz. Kakarrot did not recognize those boots, and, at any rate, they were too small. Not Radditz, not Nappa, and _Get off my station_—

A black-furred tail, gracefully controlled and proud, lowered into view.

Kakarrot forgot that he was fifteen. He forgot that he was only a matter of years away from reaching adulthood, only a few more from attaining maturity. He forgot that he was not supposed to show any weakness, that he was a Saiyajin and proud and desperate to prove himself worthy in Radditz's eyes. He forgot all of these things—

From the back of Kakarrot's throat, from somewhere in the middle of his chest, came a short, weak yelp.

It barely came out at all, a gasping, half-strangled noise that almost didn't make it through the hurting. A small, pained cry, a sound Kakarrot hadn't made since he'd been five and his tail had gotten stuck in one of the auto-locking hatches.

The sound of an incapacitated Saiyajin child, instinctively calling his kin for help.

A hand touched Kakarrot's head. It was not gentle, and the grip it made of a handful of Kakarrot's hair was not at all sympathetic to his condition.

Yet somehow it filled Kakarrot with relief.

The last thing he felt before he lost consciousness was his head leaving the floor and then a second hand taking a wrist, and lifting him up.


End file.
